


"My Man"

by danika (persephone20)



Series: season two musings [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: A - Freeform, Alternate Scene, F/M, Fluff, Glee episode: 'Funeral', Missing Scene, story stubs that have never gone anywhere but need a home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-23
Updated: 2011-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-24 21:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone20/pseuds/danika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In her head, she is thinking of Jesse, not Finn. Set during 'Funeral'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"My Man"

_"Rachel, in your head are you singing to anyone in particular?"_

Rachel looked up to Jesse, as though being asked the question hadn't occurred to her. Of course, if this was any sort of professional audition, the question _wouldn't_ have been asked of her. As it was, she now felt unprepared, something that was never good to feel right before an audition. Mr. Shue was sitting there next to Jesse, and she felt her teacher's eyes judging her, waiting for her to make the right answer.

She lied. "No."

Jesse's eyes dropped, though he only murmured, "Oh," before motioning her on to continue.

At the piano, Brad started to play her song choice, 'My Man', and Rachel had no choice but to compose herself immediately, and begin to perform.

Her head, she tried to keep clear of any distracting influences other than the natural cadence of her song. Her eyes fluttered shut as she tried, and failed, to keep images of Jesse from playing across the insides of her eyelids.

Jesse, as she'd first seen him, in the library before they'd sung 'Hello' together. Later, when he'd appeared in the choir room, announcing with Mr. Shue his intention to come to New Directions. For love, he'd said, only later to be responsible for the eggs that had been cracked on her head, over, and over, until she'd thought it would never end.

Rachel tried, forcibly, to put an end to these thoughts. They were wrong for the sort of mood she was trying to evoke in her performance. She knew this song. She'd practised it in front of the mirror, almost endlessly since they'd found out they would be auditioning for the solo at Nationals. She'd been imagining Jesse then too.

Sometimes, in her head, it was the moment that she'd realised he was at the top of the steps in the auditorium with her, his resonant voice belting out the familiar strains of 'Rolling in the Deep'. Sometimes she imagined she'd responded differently to his re-entry into her life. Though her pride would never have allowed her to accept him back so fast in real life, her head played out images of her wrapping her arms around him and kissing him again before they'd finished the last notes of the song together. Or as he'd opened his mouth to say, 'Hi, Rachel.'

She barely even noticed when Kurt, Santana and Mercedes came in to sit in the auditorium now behind Shue and Jesse. In her head, was she singing to anyone in particular? Yes.

She was. _He’ll never know..._

Even before she saw him striding towards her, she recognised the masculine click of his designer boots. After her emotionally harrowing day, she wanted nothing more than to be in his arms.

 _When he takes me in his arms  
The world is bright, alright..._

"Are you alright?" All jest removed itself from his voice. His arms tightened around her, and she buried himself further into his chest, breathing in the smell that was only him, and never even noticing when Finn joined them for all of about three seconds before going away again equally unnoticed.

"Yeah." She sniffed, and would have moved away from him except that his arms didn't unlace from the small of her back, which granted her only a limited mobility.

"You can tell me anything. You know that, right?"

And she smiled at him. Not a brilliant, show stopping smile; not a smile that was so optimistic it could cure cancer. Just a real, Rachel Berry smile.

Jesse smiled, then lifted one hand to move one strand of hair from across her cheek to behind her ear.

 _For whatever my man is  
I am his forever more._


End file.
